“Screwdriver killer Leigh Clift was brought back to court and convicted of murder following a change in a the law allowing him to be charged with a different offence over the same attack on Milton Keynes man Jonathan Barton.”

“The Court of Appeal has reversed the decision of an Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX) disciplinary hearing, ruling that the body’s disciplinary process was not independent enough to serve its purpose.”

“The Cabinet Office has released its long awaited Justice and Security Green Paper, addressing the difficult question of to what extent the state must reveal secret information in court proceedings. A consultation has been launched on the proposals; responses can be sent via email by Friday 6 January 2012.”

“Web hosts and ISPs should be allowed to keep allegedly defamatory comments online as long as the author of the comment is identified and a notice of complaint is published alongside the comment, a Parliamentary committee has recommended.”

“Under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Art 6 ‘Right to a fair trial’, ‘equality of arms’ is implicitly granted in respect of both criminal charges and civil rights and obligations. By ensuring the entitlement of a ‘fair and public hearing’, it is presumed that legal aid funding will be afforded to those individuals who would suffer injustice otherwise.”

“The duty to provide library services for children was one of the key arguments advanced by campaigners in Brent challenging the council’s decision to close 6 of its 12 libraries. Reliance was placed upon section 7 of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. This requires local authorities to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service.”

“Service of a claim form on the director of a foreign company during his temporary visit to England did not constitute personal service of the claim form on the company, within CPR r 6.5(3)(b), where the company was neither resident nor carried on business in England and all its directors were resident overseas when the proceedings were purportedly served.”

“Judges should not sit or should face recusal or disqualification where there was a real possibility on the objective appearances of things, assessed by the fair-minded and informed observer, that the tribunal could be biased. The vice-president of the Institute of Legal Executives (‘ILEX’) ought not to have been a member of a disciplinary appeal tribunal set up by the institute to deal with breaches of its rules. Her leading role in the institute and her inevitable interest in its policy of disciplinary regulation should have disqualified her because the fair-minded and informed observer ought to have or would have concluded that there was a real possibility of bias.”

“The Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin has been cleared of allegations that he could have committed a security breach after being photographed dumping work-related documents in bins in a park close to Downing Street.”